


hang your stocking next to mine

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5362556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan's home for the holidays and has a thoughtful conversation with his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hang your stocking next to mine

"What's it like?" Dan's brother asks. 

They're in his bedroom, strategically retreated from the holiday revelry happening in the rest of the house. Relatives voices are too loud and their questions are too invasive. Dan is tired of feeling like a spectacle or a puzzle people are trying to solve. His brother's just a teenager. 

"What's what like?" Dan asks. His eyes close and the headache that throbs at his temple intensifies. He's exhausted and craving home; not this home but the nice quiet one where the couch has a dent the shape of him and the toilet seat is always too cold and Phil's arms are always just warm enough. 

"Living with someone, " Adrian says. "Being with someone that long. Being... in love." 

He sounds a little grossed out, probably at himself for actually asking, but more curious than anything else. Dan relaxes at hearing that this isn't another quest for clarification on his apparently perplexing career choice. Though, really, if anyone's going to 'get' what he does - it's his brother. 

He opens his mouth without thinking of what he'll say, like he has a habit of doing. "I guess I don't really know what to compare it to, though. I had a girlfriend for three years and now I've had a boyfriend for six. I haven't been single," he uses air quotes, just because it feels like he should, "since I was younger than you are." 

"Don't you wonder what it would be like?" Adrian asks. 

"Nah." Dan shakes his head. "I'd be shit at being alone, anyway." 

"Yeah..." Adrian trails off. "Do you do that thing, you know, where you get kind of lost in your own head and can't stop thinking about something until it feels like nothing even matters?" 

Dan laughs, a surprised sound. "Yeah. Yeah, I do." 

And Phil pulls him out of it, sometimes annoyed and sometimes amused, but always more patient than Dan has any right to expect. 

"I guess that's a lot of why he and I work so well together," Dan says. "Because he doesn't get like that. He's just- up front, about everything. He faces things head on and his reaction to things is completely different from mine." 

"So he's like your babysitter or something." 

Dan laughs. "Not entirely." He stops short of going into what he does for Phil, because it's too personal and because he doesn't want to admit that sometimes he's not even sure himself. 

But that's a crisis for another time, held at bay until Phil is there to talk him off the ledge. 

"It's scary to me," Adrian says. "To think of having to rely on someone like that. I mean, I might feel pretty fucked up but at least I know when I decide something I'm not deciding for anyone but myself." 

To Dan, his little brother has always been this - kid. This kid, with a kid's perspective, hopelessly below Dan's level in life. But listening to Adrian talk right now he realizes that his kid brother is growing up. Adrian's the age now that Dan was when he met Phil. Adrian's taking a gap year, maybe looking for work experience, maybe thinking about uni. Dan doesn't really know; he doesn't really ask. He's never felt bad about that before. 

Adrian didn't show many signs of wanting Dan around, so why would Dan have tried? But maybe this is the sign. 

Dan sits up a little. "It doesn't feel like that, from this side of it. It's not like Phil makes decisions for me. We just make them - together. It's not as scary, too, because like - even if everything else fell apart, I'd still have him." 

"But you don't ever get to have anything to yourself." Adrian scoffs a little, and it takes Dan a minute to find a way out of his own perspective enough to not just scoff right back. 

He remembers being eighteen and wanting nothing more than independence, to prove to the world he could stand on his own two feet. It's the reason he was looking at universities hours away even before he and Phil were a thing. It's the reason he chose to live in the dorms and spent half that first term out getting drunk two or three nights a week, because it felt like the ideal he was supposed to live out, the experience he was supposed to be having. 

But freedom never felt as nice as waking up beside Phil. 

"I'd get bored only having sex with one person, too," Adrian says, head tilted in that cocky way, like he's overcompensating for nerves, like he expects Dan to argue him or shut him down on the topic. 

Dan does him the favor of not outright laughing, but he does chuckle. "No complaints from me there." He's not going in depth on his sex life - and hopes to hell Adrian won't either. "But it's nice to not have to work at it. No nerves, no stressing over going out to pull, wondering if I'll get shot down. One of us is in the mood, we just - ask, or instigate it. If he's got a headache or I'm too distracted, no pressure. No worrying what it means. I've told Phil before, he can't ever break up with me because I'd just be too shit at dating, I'd just stay alone for the rest of my life."

It helps that he can't imagine ever wanting anyone but Phil. 

Adrian gags a little. "You're so married." 

Dan grins. "Not yet. Maybe soon, though. Who knows." 

"I kind of wondered if you were even like... really together," Adrian admits. 

It's the first thing he's said that really shocked Dan. "What?" 

"I mean, you're all - 'Dan and Phil' - like some fucking..." 

"Brand?" Dan supplies the word Adrian's looking for. 

Adrian thinks about it, then shrugs. "Yeah. You're on the radio, on the internet, you did a book. Kind of makes you feel like not even real people. And you never bring him around here. It's just weird." 

"Yeah..." Dan quiets for a moment. "It's just weird for us, too. We're winging it." 

"Do you visit his family?" Adrian asks. He doesn't sound angry, just curious. 

"Sometimes," Dan says. "More than he comes here. But he sees them more in general. But if you want to come hang out in London some time - we've got a spare room." 

"Really?" Adrian asks, eager before he tempers it, tries to play it cool. "Um, yeah. I might do that." 

Dan finds himself smiling. "We'll figure out some dates before I leave." 

*

It's another four hours, long after dinner is served and more banal conversation is had, before Dan gets to escape outside and ring Phil. 

They've been steadily texting the entire day, so Phil knows the call is coming. He picks up before it even finishes the first ring on Dan's end. 

"That's like magic," Dan says. 

"I am a magician," Phil responds lightly. 

Just the sound of his voice after not hearing it for a full day sends a burst of warmth through Dan. 

It's not always like that. They're in each other's space so much that mostly the connection between them is just background noise, normality, special but... not really that special at all. 

He's fine if he's traveling, or if they're both at their respective homes. He misses Phil but he doesn't pine, usually, because they're never apart for more than a day or two. It's only bad when he's alone at their flat, when every little thing his eyes land on is a reminder that Phil isn't there.

But this is Christmas and Phil is his partner and there are very practical reasons for them to go in different ways for family gatherings, but each year this whole not being together for the holidays gets harder and harder to swallow with a smile. 

"I miss you," Dan says, sitting on the stoop. He's not sure how long they'll be on the call but long enough to get comfortable, he hopes. "My brother wants to come visit us." 

"Oh, really?" Phil sounds happy. "I haven't seen him since the show." 

"Yeah, I think he actually... wants to get to know you?" 

"Probably you, too," Phil points out. 

"I don't know," Dan says. "We were never close, not like you and Martyn." 

"Yeah, but Martyn and I are closer in age, too," Phil says. "You are Adrian's brother, but he was a kid when you left home. You've never had a chance to know each other as adults. Or close enough, in his case." 

"I can't even really think of him as that grown up," Dan admits. "It's just weird" 

"Aw," Phil says. "I'd love for him to come stay. As long as he doesn't come right back with you." 

"Oh?" Dan asks. "Why not?" 

"Because I require at least thirty-six hours of uninterrupted cuddle time upon your return." 

Dan laughs, low and warm. "You're an idiot. And forty-eight hours, no less." 

"You drive a hard bargain." Phil sighs. "That'll do, though." 

"We'll order pizza in." 

"Put on a film." 

"Make out like we're eighteen again." 

"I hope not," Phil says. "You were a bitey little thing." 

"You liked it." Dan smirks. "Still do." 

"Mm. Well." Phil clears his throat. "We should talk about the weather now." 

"You're not," Dan laughs. "Are you?" 

"Not that," Phil says. "Just - it's awkward. I'm going to blush and my great auntie's going to walk in and ask if I'm talking to my lovely lady on the phone, because no one's ever bothered to tell her I'm one of those 'queer lads' out of fear she'll have a heart attack on the spot." 

"Your fucking family," Dan says, shaking his head with a fond sigh. "Maybe next year I just show up with you and that'll be that." 

"Really?" Phil asks so quietly and so hopeful that it almost stuns Dan.

"Yeah, I mean." Dan swallows. "A year's a long time. We could... lay some groundwork." 

"This is." Phil huffs out a sound, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. "Maybe we talk about this back at home? I kind of want to be looking at you." 

"Yeah, of course, yeah," Dan says. 

"But, we will," Phil says. 

"We'll talk about it," Dan agrees. "Because I feel like we should." 

"Me, too." Phil does sigh this time. "I have to go soon, it's almost time for pudding." 

"And you'd never miss that," Dan says with a sweet laugh. 

"For you, I'd be tempted." 

"God, you do love me." Dan knows it's a joke but his pleasure is also genuine, that flushed warm feeling all over now. "But I won't make you make that sacrifice. I'm freezing my arse off out here anyway." 

"Go inside and get warm," Phil says. "And ring me before bedtime." 

"Always do." Dan reassures him. 

He hangs up the phone but doesn't go back inside just yet. He's thinking, mind always moving, whirring, unable to turn off the part of him that constantly is a few steps ahead of where he's at in life right now. This conversation he and Phil will have... he's not sure how it will go, or how he wants it to go. 

So much else is falling in to place in their lives. They've dreamt of this since Dan realized that dreaming maybe had a purpose after all. They've cobbled this whole thing together through grit and determination and luck and the fact that they had something no one else in the whole fucking world had - each other. 

And now he just knows that he wants to go home, he wants to sit in their home across from Phil and have another one of those adult conversations. He wants to check and see if he and Phil are both on the same page, and maybe if they're ready... to turn to the next one.

**Author's Note:**

> [Read and reblog on tumblr. :)](http://slightlydizzier.tumblr.com/post/134628406119/hang-your-stocking-next-to-mine)


End file.
